


motel stops

by fated_addiction



Category: Elementary (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-27
Updated: 2013-01-27
Packaged: 2017-11-27 01:45:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,675
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/656657
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fated_addiction/pseuds/fated_addiction
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Joan makes a list. This is what happens after.</p>
            </blockquote>





	motel stops

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers for 'M.' and such.

Joan makes a list.

Joan’s therapist also tells her to make a list. She says: “Appeal to your objectivity. That’s what doctors do.” Joan frowns like she’s bit into something sour. The therapist doesn’t see it though. “You’ll feel better,” she says too.

So Joan steals a post-it, from the bodega down the street, tells the man that his daughter is pretty and finds out she’s in Harvard and roots for medical school, even though they should really just tell you it’s not for everyone because that’s really what’s going to make better doctors.

The list is (small) something like this:

1\. She can’t tell him. She absolutely _cannot_. Because telling him will make him a million more times self-righteous and ready to sabotage, and Sherlock ready to sabotage is about the equivalent to finding a dismembered body in the Hudson and having that dismembered body smell follow you into the next week. And that’s the worst.

2\. She could tell him. Not right away. But she could tell him and deal with the repercussions of telling him because that meant talking about a lot of things that she was, _is_ , without a doubt unwilling to give to him knowing full well that there is plenty that he is unwilling and just will not give back to her. She is not into empty promises. She may trust him enough to not subject her to empty promises. But then it’s complicated and there is the captain and Irene and now, even more so, Moriarty and that mystery to solve. Joan is not a casualty.

3\. She will tell him anyway. And not know when.

Joan hates this list.

This is what it means to stay on.

 

 

-

 

 

One night she hits REPLY and stares at the cursor as it goes blink, blink and considers typing _I am not asking to extend my contract_ but then what does that really mean when you consider it.

She considers Sherlock’s father to be a rational man. She does not play the game of what she knows until she comes downstairs and walks past the couch, where Sherlock sleeps as a tangle of limbs and blankets, in a couch that is just way too small for him to begin with. She stands in the kitchen with her second tea and watches him for a little bit. She does not feel sympathetic.

Then:

“Suppose if you were to stare at me long enough, Watson,” comes the here and there reply. His pitch feels grainy. “ – perhaps I may actually sober up enough through the sheer will power of your mind?”

Her mouth does twitch.

“We need to buy you a bed,” she says.

“No.” He stretches out. She watches his hands curl into fists. “Having a bed implies a sense of self-reliance and acceptance in the mundane.”

“You’re going to hurt your back.”

“Not if I wake myself up every couple of hours or so.”

She rolls her eyes. She moves to sit on the coffee table since it’s empty and the other chair is home to file upon file re: the mystery of Moriarty and actual dismembered bodies from the Hudson.

Sherlock blinks. She knocks her knees together and folds her palms tightly into her tea mug. It’s cold now. He can probably already tell.

“Are you reconsidering extending your _companionship_?” His voice is low again and her eyes move to his mouth. She bites into a frown. His mouth is twitching now too.

“No,” she says easily. “I’m not.”

“Then?”

“Real furniture,” she shrugs. She thinks: table, chair, chairs and maybe a love seat, considering she’s got to sit somewhere and somewhere can’t be relative anymore. They are living together. She is living with him.

“Mmm.”

She does not know what that means, nor does she press; his gaze is on her. She feels it too well. He starts at her face. It is not about the way she looks at him or the room or even the stupid couch he’s stretched over. It feels like he’s peeling back her skin though, eyes to mouth, to the length of her throat – and she knows because he is curling his hands together _again_.

But then he’s up, quickly, abruptly, full force and balancing over his toes, cocked slightly over her knees. His fingers graze her forehead. Then they graze the crown of her hair and she can hear him sigh, just sharp enough.

“Do what you must,” he says lightly.

She nods and goes upstairs. She forgets about her phone and then finds her phone, half-buried in her blankets with her glasses.

The email moves. It goes to the box that reads STARRED.

 

 

-

 

 

 

She considers it next. 

What it means to lie to him.

(Because really, _really_ , there’s weight behind the facts; her lying to him is completely different than him lying to her. She can brush off his lies. She can accept his lies, good or bad or superficial. Maybe she just expects him to lie. Maybe this is why it’s different. But it comes down to what’s simple: does he know? Is he not telling her for a reason? Will he ever tell her?)

He never gives her too much time to think.

Two things happen.

There is another dead body and it is a distraction.

There is a shooting by Sherlock’s favorite bodega, not hers, the one where he gets the cigarettes that she pretends and he pretends that she doesn’t know about them and smokes them in the bathroom with the window cracked as if he were still away at boarding school and innocently hating his father.

He does not take a case. They watch the news and learn.

Morairty’s name is still pinned to the wall.

“I think there is a peculiar smell in this room.”

Sherlock wrinkles his nose. He sits on one end of the couch. She wiggles too close to the opposite end; her ankle keeps hitting his knee. He does not flinch.

“It was the Thai you ate,” she says dryly. “The one you deemed ripe with _healthy_ bacteria when I told you that it was going to fry your insides and keep you in the bathroom all night.”

“That sounds like a lot of work,” he tells her.

“No.” She blinks and shifts and suddenly, her foot is tucked under the back of his knee. He grimaces a little. Then his elbow is resting over her knee.

He’s bored, she thinks. Or uneasy. Or both.

“You hate when you’re wrong,” she adds.

“I’m perfectly well.”

His fingers flick at her knee. She bats lightly. His eyes darken and he leans a little closer. She turns her gaze to the television. He flicks at her knee again. The lipstick the news anchor wears is too pink.

His fingers still move though. They slide from her knee to under her knee, along the patch of fabric from her leggings and then down the length of her thigh. She stares hard at the screen. The fabric puckers and slides over her skin. She has a scar there. It’s a secret. It’s not an uneasy one, but his fingers still hover. She forgets about the scar. Maybe this is how he’s seen it; she can’t say he doesn’t mean it though.

This goes on for a while.

She forgets to swallow.

 

 

-

 

 

That time there was Irene –

 _was_ the closest time she came to telling him, even though it doesn’t really matter, even though he doesn’t need to know (or cares, honestly) but there are dead bodies and there is still the Hudson and Joan just finds herself sighing a lot.

In the kitchen, she bites her lip. Then: “Am I grocery shopping again?”

There is a pause. He’s muffled, after.

“Isn’t that what you do?”

She rolls her eyes. She cups both palms against the tea.

“I’m not forcing you to come,” she says. She stops at the archway between the kitchen and living room. There is a mess of locks on the table again, weaving its way around old Thai and maybe new pizza? 

“An outing nonetheless,” he grouses. He’s over the couch, book across his chest and his coat covering his knees. “I don’t want an outing.”

There is another pause. She watches him exhale. His chest lifts and settles. His hand comes to spread over his shirt too. He picks at the buttons. She looks away.

“You’re bored.”

He’s amused. “Says you.” Then he coughs. “I’d rather stay.”

“I don’t understand you,” she says, and it’s not to be blunt, or frustrated – there’s a slip of affection, the slight turn of her mouth. It twitches into a sigh. She’s never thought in muscles; connections are arbitrary. This is what made her the best.

But he sits up. He’s abrupt. His jacket lands on the floor, the arms hanging off the side. He rubs the back of his neck.

“She said that, you know,” he murmurs. His gaze is distant. Then he drops his head back. She watches. “She was quite blunt about it – I don’t understand you, Sherlock. You’re still an ass, Sherlock. But you’re an honest one. I can’t quite say it the same way – it was sort of dry, sort of strange. I was half-expecting her, rather obviously, to say something else.”

“Irene,” Joan says.

He laughs. It’s low. He pushes at the cushions.

“Irene,” he agrees. “Sweet Irene, except there was nothing sweet about her. I liked that part. I liked that part a lot.”

She says nothing. She looks away – she doesn’t know where she’s supposed to fit. There’s no science in Sherlock. They are a foundationless partnership. She could press though. That she reads. It’s enough to read. It’s also what makes her feel so guilty about everything else; she is doing this because it’s right. It’s not selfless, it’s selfish, but even those lines are blurry.

“You would have hated her,” he says. Amused, even.

“No,” she says quietly. Maybe he’s right. “I wouldn’t have known her,” she says.

At that he laughs, and it’s a low, strangely humble sound. She can’t see his face and it’s probably best – it’s at the tip of her tongue, pursed tightly against her teeth. She takes another step forward. She shifts away.

“She probably wouldn’t have liked me either.”

He snorts. “You’d be surprised.”

“Sure,” she shrugs. Her fingers press against the mug again. Her knuckles are white.

Her mouth feels slight then. She pushes away from the door, but she doesn’t move to him. He keeps his head turned back, throat exposed. It’s no less than sharp; he pushes himself up and is nothing more than a mess of movements: jerky elbows, long legs, wrinkles at his throat and chest. His eyes are dark, wide, and she never knows how to look away. This is the dangerous part.

She doesn’t tell him then either.

 

 

-

 

 

He does not come into her room.

Or he does, and it’s rare, maybe too rare, but a calm, reaffirmation of _his_ space and _her_ space and in between those lines, she is really thankful for something she doesn’t quite understand just yet.

But then she finds Moriarty on a slip of paper on the floor. The tape is curling. She hesitates and finds a new piece to put it back up.

But then he finds her room too.

 

 

 

Her eyes are open in the dark when she feels the bed shift.

The springs moan. Joan sighs. “Seriously?”

They both hear sirens outside her window.

“I’m awake,” he says.

“No kidding.” She has two decisions to make too: move aside, make him leave, and both seem stupid and heavy. Instead, she pushes herself to sit. She does not reach for the light and blinks in the dark.

He rubs his face.

“What’s wrong with you?” he asks.

“What?” She swallows panic. It’s slow. It edges itself down her throat, counting its way down as if there were nothing but ridges inside of her. Her fingers brush against the bridge of her nose. “You couldn’t have waited until –”

“It’s a quarter past, Watson,” he says. She sighs. 

“I’m aware that it’s too _fucking_ early in the morning,” she snaps. Then stops, wide-eyed. Her nose wrinkles. 

His amusement is too clear. “You just added a bit of character to yourself.”

She almost adds _wasn’t trying to_ but then she is sitting with her knees to her chest and feeling impossibly small. The panic remains. Has he looked? Does he know? What is she going to say? She can write laundry lists as a professional. This was a judgment call. But this is what they warn you against. There are rules.

Do not become attached. Move on quickly. You should always take those opportunities. Best interests at hand.

“Is it a case?” she clears her throat.

He’s silent. She finally looks at him too. Then he shrugs. His shoulders seem to sink back and his mouth moves.

“There are plenty of dead bodies in the Hudson,” he sighs.

“That’s what you told me.”

“They asked for help.”

She rolls her eyes. “You’re still refusing.”

“I’m still refusing,” he agrees. He stretches back, arms over his head. She watches his throat. “I’m not morally obligated to every misfit corner of crime, you know. Why is that I can’t be terribly cold, antsy, and bored out of my mind?”

It’s clumsy. He knows it’s clumsy. She watches and waits. By now they both know that she is a little better at this. She knows that she has no room to think he knows; he would tell her. He doesn’t know how to _not_ tell her these things.

He reaches forward then. His fingers brush at the tops of her knees.

“What are you doing?”

Her mouth is dry. She feels sharp. His thumb juts into the blanket.

“I don’t know,” he says calmly. “I don’t understand why I tell you things.”

“Does that matter?” she asks. Her voice drops.

He leans closer to her knees.

“Does it?”

“Sherlock,” her breath pitches. In the dark, she watches half of his mouth turn. “I’m exhausted,” she manages. “I need a normal morning.”

“Of course.” His head drops into a deep bow. He stares at the blankets. “I know about your mornings too.”

Sherlock blinks twice. Then he blinks a third time.

She could look away. She doesn’t. She isn’t supposed too; this is different why she _can’t_ and Joan thinks he understands that, at the very least, better than she does. This is a reason to hate him.

Her mouth doesn’t move though. She thinks _dead bodies in the Hudson_ but there is no distraction. She simply leans into her knees. The blanket bunches and gathers. Her eyes are growing wider. The panic can climb into an advantage, she tells herself. It’s about advantages and misinformation.

His hand pulls back. Her eyes move to his mouth. She watches it buckle. His lips tremble and purse. Say something, she doesn’t think.

But she doesn’t. She won’t even remember him leaving the room. Secrets come in waves. She is his confidant. He stands, after too. The bed shifts. Her knees drop and the blank pools into her hands. He stands over her, hovering, and she watches the way his face changes, the way she can sort of see it in the dark. It’s still about lines. She can pinpoint the shadows under his eyes. She knows why he didn’t pick the Hudson. She knows what boredom really means. She knows she is starting to think faster than she needs to. She is wearing her anticipation as more than just a guise.

This scares Joan. This is guilt.

He knows this much.

 

 

-

 

 

There are too many important words in what Joan does.

Consider ‘ramification’ and ‘consequence’; the outcome being greater than the mean. She thinks about this a lot. Then she remembers being a doctor. Then she stops.

Joan makes another list.

1\. She will not tell him. 

2\. He is going to find out.

This list is too short.

There is this point too.


End file.
